Campaign finance reform avoided... so far

BY FRANK STANFIELDSTAR-BANNER

Sunday

Mar 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2008 at 7:24 AM

In this year's race for the White House, candidates are talking about everything from health care to trade agreements to who is best qualified to pick up the red phone if it rings at 2 a.m.
But the one thing they are not talking about is campaign finance reform - strange, since the Republican candidate for president helped draft the most recent law. But not so strange, perhaps, when you consider just how much money is being raised by all the candidates, and there is no end in sight.
Bouncing from border to border in Texas and Ohio for those two recent Democratic primaries, Sen. Barack Obama outspent Sen. Hillary Clinton 2-to-1 on TV advertising.
She raised $35 million in February, a remarkable amount, especially since she once had to lend her campaign money from her account. But Obama raised $55 million in that short month.
As of Jan. 31, Obama had raised $141 million and had $25 million cash on hand. Clinton had raised $138 million and had $29 million in cash, according to the Associated Press.
Now that he no longer faces opposition in Republican primaries, Sen. John McCain intends to do some fundraising on his own.
McCain is familiar with campaign financing laws. He co-sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, more commonly known as the McCain-Finegold bill. It was designed to curb so-called "soft money" contributions from unions and corporations.
Funds must now come from regulated sources, and contributions have to be disclosed to the public, the law states. It also put limits on state and local parties in federal elections, including buying ads that support or attack a specific candidate.
'CYNICAL ELECTORATE'
Big bucks from a few big contributors have produced "a cynical electorate" and a "threat to democratic integrity," noted Supreme Court Justice David Souter in a 2007 court decision. In 2006, more than $2 billion was spent on TV ads, and it wasn't even a presidential election year, he said.
Some of the money flood has exploded in headlines. Powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in 2006 to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Congressmen have been toppled, jailed or disgraced. Federal agents found thousands of dollars in a Louisiana congressman's freezer.
Zell Miller, a two-term Democratic governor from Georgia, was appalled at a pervasive attitude of fundraising greed and corruption when he became a Senator in Washington in 2000.
However, he also admitted, "I ain't exactly a virgin myself."
The man who grew up in a tiny village in the mountains recalled in his best seller, "A National Party No More," that as lieutenant governor, he would drive to all 159 counties, shaking hands at courthouses, hoping to get his picture in the local paper, and looking for radio station antennas.
In Washington, he locked himself in a tiny room with an aide, a telephone and a list of potential contributors.
Armed with personal information about the "mark," he said he would appear to be "chatty," then hit the person up for soft money by mentioning a project and claiming credit or promising results.
"I always left that room feeling like a cheap prostitute who'd had a busy day," he wrote.
He was so disgusted, he helped sponsor McCain's campaign funding bill.
FREE AIR TIME
Candidates sometimes play to the public's wariness.
Obama has accused Clinton of taking "special interest" money, while labor unions line up to endorse him, and the New York senator has blasted her rival for ties to political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who is on trial for fraud. He is accused of manipulating the Illinois governor's office.
The perception of ethical problems extend to the news media, too, especially TV networks, which receive the lion's share of the campaign advertising dollars.
Former CBS News reporter Tom Fenton, in his book "Bad News," calls paid political ads "a murky, seedy, gray area in which attack ads proliferate and civilized standards deteriorate with every election."
He cites as one possible alternative, the United Kingdom model, with its free air time for political broadcasts.
Common Cause, a reform lobby whose motto is "holding power accountable," is touting the Fair Elections Now Act on its Web site, commoncause.org. The bipartisan Senate bill (S.1285) calls for a voluntary system of public funding for Senate candidates.
No doubt, the controversy will continue.
ADVOCACY QUESTIONS
In the ruling that Justice Souter commented on in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that there are indeed limits on the McCain-Finegold bill.
Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. argued in its case that the Campaign Reform Act violated its constitutional right of free speech in its ban of "electioneering communication" within 30 days of an election.
The court had a problem trying to distinguish between "campaign advocacy" and "issue advocacy." After all, justices noted, candidates and their campaigns are tied to issues.
And Justice Anthony Scalia wrote in his opinion that it was "wondrous irony" that the campaign finance law "designed to muzzle unions and nearly all manner of corporations for all the 'corrosive and distortioning effects' of their 'immense aggregations of wealth,' were utterly impotent . . . to prevent the so-called "527 groups" like Moveon.org and the Swift Boat Veterans from concentrating more power "in the hands of the wealthiest individuals . . ."
The real irony, the conservative justice noted, is that it was the "small, grass-roots organization of Right to Life that is muzzled."
In the end, the court ruled in favor of the Wisconsin group.
Frank Stanfield may be reached at frank.stanfield@starbanner.com or 867-4105.

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